


Silent Halls in the Loud House

by Writersblock159



Category: The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, One Shot, soul searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writersblock159/pseuds/Writersblock159
Summary: Lincoln's still gone, and the family is dealing with his absence after a cross dimensional visitor brought home just how much they really miss him. A companion fanfic to immortal starscream's The Lard House.
Relationships: Luna Loud/Sam Sharp
Kudos: 3





	Silent Halls in the Loud House

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Lard House](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/704587) by immortal starscream. 



> This does not exist.  
> We do not ask questions about where it came from, or when the sequel (that is NOT happening) will be posted.  
> I do not own the characters, they are subsidized by Nickelodeon, and immortal starscream owns the setting.  
> He has been generous enough to allow this to be posted. It is not cannon to his work.

Click [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13674619/1/The-Lard-House) to read the inspiration for this.

* * *

The silence in the Loud house was unnatural.

None of the twelve occupants were, in fact, asleep. Instead they were absorbed in their thoughts and feelings, each in their own way.

Despite the loss of their only brother, noise still emanated from his room. The steady thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, of a ball bouncing as someone threw it against the door and catching it each time it finally came back echoed through the nearly silent halls. Lynn stared at the little ball as she continued to throw it, catch it, throw it, catch it…

She seemed to be doing it almost automatically. No real thought was going into it, and had someone interrupted her, she may not have even noticed the sudden lack of her fidget toy.

_“...You’re a bully…”_

She had denied it at first. Tried to rationalize it. To prove that it was wrong. Sure, she could be competitive, and on occasion she had been known to go overboard celebrating a win or two, but she’d thought she’d improved.

_“...A bully…”_

When that Leni-look-alike had stepped through time and space Lynn had thought--well, of course she’d thought about how fat the girl was--but she’d also thought that the girl was wrong. Was just trying to stir up trouble.

But that Leni seemed… smarter, and not in a good way.

It was as though she didn’t want them to get their brother. As though she saw them all as a danger. As...competition.

Lynn had grown up with a competitive streak a mile wide, and on occasion she had even gone toe-to-toe with someone who _thought_ they could keep up with her enthusiasm, so she knew what someone who was being competitive looked like. The Not-Leni had looked like that. Dangerous, willing to win at any cost.

The ball hit the doorframe and bounced off at a strange angle, but Lynn didn't chase it; she just dropped her hand as tears pricked in the corners of her eyes. It wasn’t _fair!_ Whoever the alternate family was that had Lincoln, he wasn’t _Theirs!_ He was a Loud. They missed him. They wanted him back!

Why wasn’t that enough?

Curling up against her brother’s bed (not in it, _that_ would be weird) she focused on breathing. Lincoln probably didn’t know that the imposter family, the Lords or whatever, had found his home. If he knew, then he would have come back.

Right?

***

“Give me three more of the green beakers.” Lisa’s voice betrayed none of the tiredness she felt.

“Green stuff!” Lana handed her sister the requested chemicals before returning to the large contraption she was working on. “You got a way to target this thing yet?”

“No.” Lisa tried to hide the annoyance she felt at having to admit that, but judging by the way her sister winced, she did a poor job. “My apologies, sister, I find the longer I work on this without rest, the less effective I get at controlling my...baser instincts. I will try to repress my emotions.”

“Nah, don’t bother.” Lana rose, dusting off her knees. “We should really get some sleep.”

“We must find Lincoln,” Lisa disagreed, turning back to her beakers. “I appreciate your work stabilizing the portal generator. Creating a viable wormhold is...not an easy feat. If you decide to get some rest, I will not begrudge you that choice.”

Lana placed a hand on her younger sister’s shoulder. “You’re working yourself too hard, Lisa. We’ve both been up for forty-six hours.” Glancing back at the pile of empty coffee cups and assorted energy drinks, she frowned. “That can’t be healthy, and that’s coming from _me.”_

Lisa snorted. “While it is true that a well-rested mind functions better, I am in the process of attempting to cut a hole not only in space, but also time as well.” She glanced at her sister. “Forgive me if I say that some of the experiments I am running are a bit… time sensitive- no pun intended.”

“And are they safe to run alone, on almost no sleep?”

“I am not alone. You are here,” the bespectacled sibling replied.

Lana yawned. “Not any more. Finish up whatever you’re doing and get some rest. We’ll hit it again as soon as we both wake up.”

As the little grease monkey walked out the door to her own room, Lisa allowed a frown to crease her brow. While she had allowed her sisters to assume her desire to cross both _time_ and space was for a purely sentimental purpose, the reality was far more...clinical in her mind.

“Lincoln, you had better still be alive when I get to you,” she muttered, glancing at the electronic parts sitting in a charger on the far right. Her brother was the first living human with robotic organs, making him (scientifically at least) the most significant being on the planet...or rather, he would be if he wasn’t currently lost somewhere in the multiverse.

Reaching for the few experiments she had running, the little genius marked down where they were in the cycle before removing them from their unstable states. “I’m running out of time,” she muttered. “Why can I freeze the fourth dimension, but as soon as I try to move along it, everything goes sideways?”

Shaking her head, she slipped her notebook shut. She was in a time crunch. If this took too long, she was likely to lose her experiment. Years of work could be lost!

Oh, and her brother as well, she supposed.

“Sometimes we outfox ourselves, as my sister would say,” Lisa muttered. “It figures that my crowning achievement would be snatched from me by my own hubris over a _prank_ , of all things.”

Shrugging, she shed her lab coat and began turning down the lights. She was feeling tired despite her denials, and without a lab assistant, she was just asking to get hurt.

***

Lucy was back on her mattress, her coffin stored firmly under the bed.

She hadn’t considered how much her little lie had actually _hurt_ her big brother. The sibling she loved more than life...or for certain Edwin, who she had recently banished to the coffin with the intention of leaving him there.

Alter-Leni had scared Lucy in a way that almost no one else ever had. She had told the family where they had been lacking, which was shocking (though not frightening), and she had told them she didn’t want them to have Lincoln back.

And then she said that he might not want to come back.

Lucy rolled onto her side. What if he didn’t _want_ to come back, even to visit? What if he stayed away? What if they found him and he just...didn’t care?

An image of her brother looking dismissively at her and turning his back made her fight back a round of tears. She was so good at that. She was used to hiding her emotions. Let the rest of the sisters become blubbering wrecks; Lucy would leave her emotions in her journals and poetry.

It was better that way.

She felt more internal shame as she thought of that _stupid_ book. It had just been a book, no problem, she should have said something, she _wanted_ to, but…

But she’d been afraid. Afraid of what people would say if they knew she wasn’t what they thought she was. Afraid her friends would leave her. Afraid that she would have to become someone she wasn’t. She’d tried being normal later and…

She didn’t think she could ever go back to mini-golf after that horrendous night.

And her brother always looked out for her. He had chosen to cover for her that day, and the teasing had been merciless, as she’d thought. Her life had gotten complicated again, with rumours of an ancient evil locked in the one of the Kali goddess statues on loan from India to the local museum. By the time she’d finished dealing with that, her sisters had stopped and she hadn’t known how bad it had been.

Her brother had been there for her, and she hadn’t been there for him. She was a failure of a sister.

A loud snore came from next door, and she changed sides, trying to ignore the noise.

Could she be wrong about the occult? Well, no, she wasn’t. She’d seen too much to say that the occult didn’t exist, but where she’d previously thought that immersing herself into the world of the extraordinary and impossible was the way to happiness, now she was struggling with doubt. Instead of that, perhaps Lincoln would come back if she was ‘normal.’ Maybe not mini-golf levels of normal, but maybe… she still had the hair dye, and she knew where the wardrobe Lana had made for her had gone…

Maybe he’d want to stay if she looked normal.

A louder snore cut though her thoughts, and she mentally began running through plans to fix herself. It was time to grow up. No more little sister who needed her big brother to look out for her. From now on she would be _his_ defender. No matter what.

Resolution made, she rolled back onto her back. Briefly, she wondered if the snoring was Lana again, or if Lola wasn’t caring about being ‘ladylike’ tonight.

***

The strangest thing about Lana and Lola’s room wasn’t the fact that the more tomboyish one was currently asleep on the wrong bed, still fully clothed. Nor was it the lack of the other twin. Rather, it was the lack of toys, the utter exhaustion of all things beauty related. A barren dresser and table, stuffed animals missing from their usual places, were enough to tell someone that something was off. Anyone who knew the twins would be most concerned by the closet door, which was closed tightly. If one were to open it, they would be surprised to see that the chic clothes that were so common for the aspiring fashionista of the duo were gone from their place at the front of the closet.

The owner of those clothes was doing something she wouldn’t be caught dead doing in those clothes anyway.

Well, not without posing for it, at least.

“What do you _mean_ you ate all the chocolate chips?”

“Well, I was hungry, and I figured that we could still make cookies without them.” Leni looked confused, and Lori sighed tiredly as Lola slapped her forehead.

“You thought that, _even though we no longer have chocolate chips_ , we could still make chocolate chip cookies?”

“Yyeade!” Lilly agreed from where she was playing with the flour.

“Oh no!” Lori cried, racing to the baby, who was fast approaching ‘white as a ghost’ as the toddler picked up and dropped the flour on top of herself, laughing and clapping as she did so.

“Is there a problem?” Leni asked in confusion, still not entirely sure what the issue was with the chocolate chips.

“I think Lilly needs a bat- Lilly, no!” The last was said as Lori reached the baby, who promptly spilled the entire flour container onto the floor. Flour went everywhere, lightly obscuring everything and covering all the things and people in the kitchen.

“Okay, that is _it!_ ” Lola hopped down. “I need a shower.”

“So does Lilly,” Lori said between coughs, holding the still clapping and giggling baby up as she did so.

“You look like a ghost!” Leni laughed, before pausing. “Wait, you aren’t a ghost, right?”

Lori rolled her eyes. “Can you sweep up this mess, please, Leni, and throw it away in the garbage before you take your shower?”

“Sure,” said the easygoing sister.

“Where are mom and dad when you need them?” muttered Lori as she followed her younger sister upstairs, carrying the youngest as she did so.

***

“Are we _really_ bad parents?” Rita asked her husband.

Lynn sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t think so until that alternate-dimension traveller showed up. Laid out like that, our actions do seem rather...lacking.”

“I always thought we did so well.” Rita tried not to cry again. “I know we could always do better, at least in hindsight, but I thought we had adjusted well to try to meet those shortcomings.”

Lynn sat down on their bed. “I feel we’ve done the best we can.” He shook his head tiredly. “Whoever that girl- woman -whatever was, the point she _didn’t_ bring up does need to be talked about.”

“We are not getting rid of any of our children, Lynn!” Rita’s voice was a bit louder than necessary, but her husband didn’t flinch...much.

“Are we sure that’s for the best, though?” he asked quietly. When his wife didn’t immediately answer, he continued. “Lori is almost out of the house, so I’m not concerned about her.” Rita gave a curt nod, so he continued. “Lisa should have left ages ago-”

“She’s four!” Rita gasped.

“She just sent her brother to another dimension, by _accident_ !” Lynn countered. “What normal four-year-old does that?” He took a breath to calm himself before continuing. “Rita, Lisa is _teaching_ college classes and leading the way in cutting edge research, but she has no real frame of reference for professional morality.” He sighed deeply. “I think she CLEP’d her professional ethics course, which is why she’s been using us as guinea pigs.”

“She’s still only four.” Rita whispered.

“What were _you_ doing at four years old, dear?” Lynn cuddled his wife. “I may not remember much, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t experimenting on my siblings with potentially deadly consequences- at least not any differently than any other four year old.” When she gave him a curious look, he just replied, “Mud pies.” She giggled for a bit, then he continued. “I certainly didn’t send any of my siblings into any one of an infinite number of universes, requiring a cross-universe double of my sister to shake my parents into figuring out what to do.”

Rita lay there for a minute before finally nodding. “I’ll call her college tomorrow.”

Lynn let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Okay, that’s one of the two most nerve wracking. Now for the other.”

“Luan?”

“Luan.”

The two were quiet for a bit before Lynn rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I’ve always been so afraid of stifling her. I don’t want her to be afraid to express herself with humor if she wants to.”

“And the fact she shares your humor has nothing to do with that.” Rita snorted.

“True.” Lynn allowed. “But I hate to tell any of our kids no, especially when it’s just a prank.”

“Leni was right, though.” Rita spoke up quickly. “Her pranks have been getting more...malevolent lately.”

“Once she pointed out the dangers to Lilly and Lana, I realized that,” Lynn replied quietly.

Silence fell between the two adults before Rita finally broke. “So what do we do?”

“We’re going to have to be stricter with her.” Lynn replied simply. “It’s not ideal, but it’s all I got.”

“We’ll table it for now.” Rita decided, mentally agreeing with her husband. “That’s a long conversation we’ll have to deal with later.”

Lynn nodded. “As for LJ…”

***

Two floors up, far from her parents, the topic of their recent conversation stared at her notecards.

“Am I really that bad?” she muttered, looking around her room. She had noticed her family had been avoiding her, but she had put that down to enhanced weariness for pranks. Did they think she was dangerous?

Six barristers walk into a bar…

Two goalies walk into Annette…

A family of gophers go to a hole milk shop…

She sighed, setting down her notes. It was true that the jokes were low hanging fruit and she knew that, but really, jokes were easy. She kept the dad jokes around her family because there was _plenty_ of humor that Luna would fill her mouth with soap over if she heard her say around her younger siblings. Dad jokes were safe, and it didn’t matter who _might_ hear her then, the reaction would be mostly the same. A groan. An eyeroll. A plea to _never say that again_.

She’d heard it all before.

She’d tried to graduate to practical jokes after a while. After all, she was stifling herself for her siblings so she figured they might find some humor in the physical side of things. Still, finding out that her April Fools Day escapade was looked at more as a horror story than a humorous one gave her pause.

Though not much of one.

At the end of the day, she understood that humor was in the eye of the beholder, and, while nobody but Luna knew this, the stories she had gained from that night alone had often ensured her gigs were filled with laughter. 

So maybe her family didn’t see the humor. Obviously everybody else did.

Shrugging, she went back to reviewing her cards. She would probably revisit this topic the next time she felt like pranking somebody, but really, that Leni clone was just full of it. When had _Leni_ known anything?”

***

Leni had finally finished cleaning the kitchen.

She was less than pleased that her sisters had left her to clean, but she supposed it made sense.

Leni knew she was slow. She knew there was a reason for it, but she could never remember the _exact_ reasoning her parents gave.

Oh well, it probably wasn’t important.

She could do calculus, it just took time. The same with reading, science, and most geography and history. It just took a little time for her to fully grasp everything, and she wasn’t exactly great with recall either.

Just like everything else, it took her a little time to think.

So while everyone started panicking after Lincoln had disappeared, and her own twin had shown up and been _incredibly_ mean to her, Leni did what she did best.

She thought. Slowly and steadily.

It didn’t take her long to reach the conclusion that, if she had been in her fat twin’s shoes, she wouldn’t have let Lincoln within five miles of the dimension with his family, much less five dimensions, or a portal back. Realistically, she wouldn’t even tell him that he could come back until she had his assurances he wouldn’t leave even if he could.

So Lincoln probably didn’t know that they missed him.

But was that bad?

 _That_ was the question the blonde was having trouble with.

She loved her brother. He was nice; he looked out for her and he defended her. She knew she was slow, but Lincoln had never been upset with her about it. When she said “I don’t get it” someone almost always told her, just increasing her frustration, but Lincoln had never done that. He had always asked if she wanted to know, and usually let her arrive at the conclusion on her own. He didn’t make fun of her, just gave a smirk.

She loved her little brother.

But was this somewhere that he should be?

As she chewed on that she heard the click of the front door latch, followed by what was the definite sound of the lock being engaged. A moment later a loud rumble of an engine was heard, then silence.

Turning off the light, she glanced into the dining room to see a note sitting on the table.

Looking around to see who might have dropped the paper off, she picked it up and read it.

_Guys,_

_I’m done._

_I told you guys not to take it overboard. I told you that you shouldn’t do anything worse than what he did, especially since you brought it on yourself. I told you to go light on him._

_Sending our brother to an alternate dimension is_ **_not_ ** _what I consider light._

_So I’m gone. I’ve got a few gigs lined up, then I’m just gonna go where the road takes me. Don’t worry about school, Mom and Dad, I finished transferring to an online school earlier this week._

_I love all of you, but I can’t be around you anymore. Whether through action or inaction, all of us did things that led to Lincoln being sent to who-knows-where._

_He seems safer there, so leave him be._

_I’m with people I can trust._

_Maybe call in a month or two after I’ve cooled off,_

_Luna_

Leni tried blinking the tears out of her eyes. Another sibling gone. No way to find them. She sighed as she set down the note. She wanted her brother, her punk sister, she just wanted everything to go _back_. Back to the way it was before her sisters sent their brother away. Before everything went wrong.

Before her family started falling apart.

***

“Are you really sure you want to do this?”

“That’s the third time you’ve asked me that question in the last thirty seconds, Sam.” Luna leaned back in the car seat.

Her girlfriend shrugged. “I ran away with only a wagon at seven. Made it three blocks before I wanted dinner and turned around.”

Luna smiled, looking out the window. “I did two days after my sixth birthday. I went to the school bus stop on a weekend and waited all day to catch a bus to…” She paused. “I don’t remember where, but I was ready for an adventure.”

“What happened?” the blonde asked, turning onto the freeway.

“My parents got me. Chewed me out. My sisters were crying because I left.” Luna sighed. “I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be their response this time, too.”

“You wanna go back?”

“No,” the punk rocker said firmly. “And I’m going to have to ask you to do something kinda gross when we get to the hotel.”

“How gross are we talking?” Sam asked curiously.

“Light surgery.”

“Um, what?”

Luna sighed. When her girlfriend looked at her, she waved away the concern. “Not you, my little sister. She implanted tracking devices in all of us.” The brunette motioned to the spiked collar she was wearing. “This is a lead alloy, but it’s still pretty heavy. I don’t want to wear it if I don’t have to.”

“Okay.” Sam said, accepting the request for her to perform surgery on her girlfriend far too easily in Luna’s opinion. “And you’re sure-”

“Sam, you weren’t this nervous when we had sex for the first time,” Luna said bluntly, facing her girlfriend and feeling a little giddy at the cute blush that traced the blonde girl’s face. “I know your parents were perfectly happy letting us basically elope, so what’s on your mind?”

“My parents at least knew about it.” Sam muttered, hyperfocused on the road, obviously trying to hide her blush.

“The sex?”

“No, perv! The running away!” Luna laughed and Sam shot her a dirty look. “As far as they’re concerned it’s less of a ‘running away’ and more of a ‘rite of passage trip’ type of thing.”

“Yeah, well.” Luna looked away. “I don’t have that luxury.”

“I’m sure your parents-”

“They might.” Luna agreed. “But I don’t want my older sisters bugging me every five minutes for ‘all the deets,’ and I don’t need Luan trying to hitch a ride and sabotaging us for a laugh, or Lisa deciding to ‘experiment’ on us…” She paused, shaking her head free of thoughts and trying to ignore the surprised look on Sam’s face.

“Luna, do you really think your sisters would do that?”

“They’ve done that in some fashion to us all at one point or another.” Luna replied, still calming down. “I can’t… I just- someone pointed out some things about my ‘family’ and I just couldn’t stay after that.”

“Someone who?” Sam asked, setting the cruise control.

Luna glanced out the window again. “I, um… I don’t-” She took a deep breath. “It’s going to sound crazy.”

“Crazier than a four-year old doctor with connections to NASA who also attends college and regularly tutors every single one of her sisters? Crazier than an eight-year old who knows more about cadavers than our science teacher? Crazier than-”

“Okay, okay!” Luna laughed, cutting her smirking girlfriend off. Her face got pensive for a moment. “But yeah, crazier than all of that.”

The car swerved a bit, and Luna shot a concerned look at Sam, who was suddenly focusing on the road. “Crazier?” Luna nodded. “How much crazier?”

Thinking through all the stories she’d told Sam over the years of their friendship, Luna shrugged. “Like, three, maybe four more steps up on the ladder of insanity that is my home life.”

“So still believable then.” And Sam should not look that cute when she sounded so relieved. She was lucky she was driving, or Luna might have kissed her.

Hell, she still might when they stopped to get gas or something.

“I think so?” Luna tilted her head to one side, thinking. What the heck, it wasn’t like she’d know if she didn’t say something.

“Well it all started when my sisters sent Lincoln to another dimension…”

***

As a car sped away across the country, a little house mourned. Some admitted to their crimes and others denied them. Some mourned for good reasons and some for bad. Some thought of themselves, and some thought of others.

Nonetheless, it was obvious that something was missing…

That something was wrong...

**Author's Note:**

> There will be no further fics in this universe, or fandom.  
> I am not planning to EVER post anything else in this fandom.  
> A special thank you to Jeneralissima for Beta'ing something outside her fandom (and mine) within a half hour of requesting it, you deserve cookies.  
> Additional special thanks to immortal starscream for reviewing the fic before release. Scroll to the top to read the source material. I mean, it was good enough to inspire this...  
> Okay, that actually might hurt the chances of you visiting his work... Go read his stuff, it's better than mine! Puppies!  
> Please let me know if you enjoyed this travesty, it'll help soothe the pain.  
> R&R


End file.
